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Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics

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Re: Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics

#361

Post by bruce511 »

ajmurmann wrote: post #358
wavemode wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX paid that $60 billion entirely in stock. In other words, they traded 2% of their own inflated stock value, for 100% of Cursor's inflated stock value. This is actually a great deal for SpaceX. If they had paid $60 billion dollars in cash for Cursor, it would have been a ripoff.

Couldn't they just have sold their stock for dollars?

You can't sell 60b worth of stock without moving the price. It has to be dribbled out over time.

Some buyees of course insist on cash. Which moves the effect of stock sales onto the buyer. Most buyers would prefer to pay in stock as it doesn't impact cash flow at all.

So, a all-stock deal already has the future-price of the stock built in. Which probably (but not necessarily) inflates the headline number.

In other words, let's say I offer you 60b stock[1], or 30b cash. Which would you take? If you're risk adverse, take 30b cash. You can buy a nice diversified portfolio with that.

If you're confident SpaceX will be around say 10 years from now, and still worth good money, then take the 60b and sell it slowly over a long time. It's a big bet though (if SpaceX goes into liquidation, all stock immediately goes to 0.) Of course if you think the price will ultimately go up, then it's a good choice as well.

[1] there are likely some boundaries which dictate when you can start selling the stock.

Re: Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics

#362

Post by d3Xt3r »

Reason077 wrote: post #182
OtherShrezzing wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> robot maid that could clean, wash and fold the laundry, do the dishes, etc. would be huge. I think a lot of people would pay new-car money for something like that. Once you take maintenance of a machine with price-parity to a new car into consideration, it’s surely cost competitive to just hire a human to do all those things. The price needs to fall drastically below new-car territory before it’s competitive with m…

> ”it’s surely cost competitive to just hire a human to do all those things.” The cost of labour varies hugely in different parts of the world. The cost of hiring someone in Switzerland is on the order of 100X more expensive compared to Bangladesh, for example. With many countries currently in an anti-immigration political mindset and with birth rates declining globally, labour costs are likely to continue to increas…

With joblessness on the rise and no signs of a reversal, there will always be people desperate for work, even at minimum wages. And there will be those so desperate, that they will willing to be exploited by agencies that will underpay them, for instance to get visa sponsorships. Humanoid robots won't be able to compete with that, at least, not in the near future.

Even in Switzerland, unemployment is on the rise - it's up by a massive 12.2% compared to last year[1].

The only way I see humanoid robots becoming a threat is a company with deep pockets mass manufactures them and subsidises them heavily that they can compete with desperate humans.

However, I doubt an actual competent robot could ever be that cheap in the near future. I mean, I still haven't come across a Roomba-style robot that's actually smart enough to detect which obstacles it can go over, or have a small robotic arm or something that can move light things that's in the way. Like say there's a sock on the floor, it should be able to simply move it out of the way and continue vacuuming; or say there's a wire, it should be able to determine whether or not it's safe to go over the wire instead of going around it. So until I see some real advancements in roombas, I remain skeptical about humanoid robots. And when we do get a humanoid robot that's clever enough to make sense of all the chaos in common households - and take care of it intelligently - you can bet that it won't come cheap.

[1] https://swisscareer.substack.com/p/the-myth-of-low-unemploym...

Re: Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics

#363

Post by monocasa »

dehugger wrote: post #290
monocasa wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more that Space X's valuation is ridiculous, and they need acquisitions that are ridiculous to pretend that the emperor is still wearing clothes. When cursor is selling for $60B, then grok has to really be worth several times that, right?

I don't know that I disagree, but this had to be in the works before the IPO right? Acquisitions don't typically materialize in a timeline of <1 week (or perhaps they do when someone walks in and offers 60B...)

Inflating SpaceX's perceived value would have been the primary goal for a lot of the business for at least the past year leading up to the IPO.

Re: Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics

#364

Post by moomoo11 »

theptip wrote: post #206
glaslong wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is Boston Dynamics makes actual robots, which are much more limited than robots constructed from pure hype.

> If you show revenue, people will ask 'HOW MUCH?' and it will never be enough. The company that was the 100xer, the 1000xer is suddenly the 2x dog. But if you have NO revenue, you can say you're pre-revenue! You're a potential pure play... It's not about how much you earn, it's about how much you're worth. And who is worth the most? Companies that lose money! Being less cynical, I do think it’s fair to say that they…

now imagine atlas with depleted uranium armor plates, 120 5.56 rounds (99.7% accuracy), and whatever specific equipment for an individual operator role

spot as a ground recon unit that works with

drones in the air that create 3d plan of attack

instead of sending elite human and dog operators in first, a squad of 4 atlas, 2 spots, and 4 drones is deployed

the human teams move in second, close behind

also do people really want humanoid robots at home?

that’s a lot of space

Re: Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics

#365

Post by sciencejerk »

SeriousM wrote: post #199
Hugsbox wrote: post #31

I don't understand why they would implement humanoid robots instead of purpose-built robots. The human form is not the most optimal way to do most tasks, especially as it relates to manufacturing. Robots don't need to look like humans, they need to be useful . Seems like putting in an awful lot of extra unnecessary work to end up with a worse result.

At least a third arm would be helpful. I can't count how many times I've wished for a third arm!

How about a third leg? Eh?

Re: Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics

#366

Post by KeplerBoy »

raincole wrote: post #308
criddell wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yesterday I read about Cursor being sold for $60bn. Cursor being worth more than 50x Boston Dynamics seems insane.

I know quite a lot of people who use (or used to use) Cursor. I don't personally know one single person who owns a humanoid robot. YMMV.

I know quite lot of people who could fork vs code and write a passable agent harness. I don't know one single person who could build a humanoid robot and I majored in mechatronjcs.

Re: Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics

#367

Post by chairmansteve »

ajmurmann wrote: post #356
quickthrowman wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Eventually you have to wonder what their future prospects are. Boston Dynamics is a defense contractor, their future prospects are designing and manufacturing war machines, the same thing they’ve always done. The dog robots are meant to carry stuff/support combat troops. The humanoid robots are designed to rescue injured soldiers and possibly other risky tasks. They may have plans to commercialize these robots, but…

Those robot dogs have been looking amazing for as long as I can think. What's in the way of the big military contract?

In Ukraine they are using tracked autonomuous vehicles for the same tasks. Much cheaper.

Re: Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics

#368

Post by chairmansteve »

lokimedes wrote: post #163
dehugger wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was trying to think about the why with Cursor, and the only thing that makes sense to me is they wanted experts in making harnesses so that they can pivot that expertise towards building harnesses intended for autonomous agents to use instead of humans. There's no world where a 60 billion IDE makes sense.

Not just an IDE, look at the prospect, they’ll soon lead in farming, genetics, AGI and teleportation. Remember to price in the TAM of that!

Time travel!

Re: Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics

#369

Post by awestroke »

cpgxiii wrote: post #90
ACCount37 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how many times this has to be restated. It's car manufacturing. Everything that could be done by a purpose specific robot arm bolted down to the factory floor is already done by a purpose specific robot arm bolted down to the factory floor. What remains unautomated, then? The long tail of tasks that are too minor, too finicky, too open-ended or too reliant on manual dexterity to be offloaded onto traditi…

> Everything that could be done by a purpose specific robot arm bolted down to the factory floor is already done by a purpose specific robot arm bolted down to the factory floor. Hah! Hardly. I say this as someone whose first "real job" was in applying robotics research to automotive assembly - there are still a ton of assembly tasks that could be performed by a fixed-base robot arm, or a robot arm on a linear rail/f…

Your work experience does not represent the current state of the art in car manufacturing automation

Re: Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics

#370

Post by Iulioh »

idiotsecant wrote: post #44
Zigurd wrote: post #43

Hyundai bumped their ownership up to 100%, and took the opportunity to reset expectations about when Atlas would be working in Hyundai factories. While Atlas is the best humanoid robot so far, it still isn't useful in a car factory that's fully equipped with the latest factory robots that are strong enough to juggle car engines and are bolted to the floor. Everyone knows the killer app for humanoid robots is building…

There are plenty of tasks a relatively weak humanoid robot is well suited for. Basically any task that is 'human shaped' and not worth an automated line.

Wire harness making is basically a 100% human task now, this is one of the biggest things that would need to get automated but it's a PITA with huge variation and connectors with poor-fish documentation
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